Customer Reviews

Parallel Processing and Parallel Algorithms: Theory and Computation

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

cons:
1. At least in the first printing, the book is loaded with mistakes that could have been caught by even a bad job of editing. The layout isn't too good either, which can make some things hard to read - the author could have used TeX like everyone else who publishes for Springer.
2. The author has the annoying habit of using the present tense when referring to ancient developments in the field, thus making it sound like old techniques (authors, products, etc) are still in vogue. This makes me wonder whether the book had any pre-publication readers or editors with experience in the field.
3. Much of the coverage is a superficial regurgitation of other books and surveys.
4. Due to the topic selection, it is not really suitable for any particular course, but see below.

Pros:
1. The book does a reasonably good job of surveying the many approaches to parallel architecture and parallel programming that have been studied over the last twenty years.
2. Many ideas are ignored by current textbooks because they have been usurped by the cluster & MIMD approach, MPI, and java. This book covers topics like dataflow architectures, connection machines (and their prog. languages) and so forth, which in my IMHO are important for current students and researchers to know of.

This textbook provides an exceptional introduction to parallel
processing by balancing the theory and computation.
The emphasize was on designing, analyzing, and implementing
parallel algorithms suitable for execution on parallel systems.
As a student interested in parallel processing, I did learn how
to make efficient use of emerging parallel computer tchnology.
I do highly recommend this book to anybody interested in this area of computer science.

Seems to me that the book is organized very well in order to provide enough knowledge in the area of parallel processing and parallel algorithms. Presenting difficult subjects with calrity and completness was an important criteria of the book.

Seems to me that the book is organized very well in order to provide enough knowledge in the area of parallel processing and parallel algorithms. Presenting difficult subjects with calrity and completness was an important criteria of the book.

If this is not the authoritative text on PDP, then I don't know PDP is. It clearly states everything you need to know clearly. When I grow up, I want to be a parallel algorithm.